Beckman Drives Mopar to His Third No.1 Qualifier Position of the Season at Las Vegas NHRA Nationals

April 2, 2016 , Las Vegas -  Las Vegas is synonymous with streaks, both good and bad, and performances by Mopar drivers in qualifying at the 17th annual National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Nationals certainly helped add to that reputation.
 
Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) driver Jack Beckman helped extend the Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car’s consecutive streak of No.1 qualifier positions to four this season with another record setting run, while his teammate Ron Capps, who has one of those pole positions along with two final round appearances so far this year, will miss racing on Sunday for the first time since 2013. Mopar Pro Stock driver Erica Enders saw her incredible round win streak at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway stopped at 23, but is hoping that Sunday will bring an end to the string of first round losses that have plagued her this season.
 
Beckman drove his Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T to his third No.1 Qualifier position of the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season and the 18th of his career. Similarly to his passes at the Winternationals and the Gatornationals, he earned the pole with a record lap of 3.916 seconds at 322.88 miles on Friday evening, further extending the DSR team’s track record total to eight of the 21 drag strip venues.
 
Beckman’s Mopar had the second quickest run of Saturday’s first session and then was quickest again in final qualifying with a 3.928/314.90 pass to earn a total of 16 of a possible 20 bonus points for his qualifying efforts. He’ll see Terry Haddock as his opening round opponent.
 
"I'm more than satisfied" said Beckman, who earned seven poles and seven national title wins last season on his way to finishing runner-up in the Funny Car championship. "We're finally figuring out how to make this car run on a hot racetrack. That's been our Achilles heel and tomorrow might be the day we get over that hump.”
 
DSR teammate Matt Hagan drove his Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R/T to a pair of three second runs with a best lap of 3.995 seconds at 311.20 mph posted in the final qualifying session.
 
"We're qualified and the race car went down the track three out of the four times in the heat so I'm pretty tickled at that," said Hagan who qualified tenth. "It had a (cylinder) out on the last run and was rattling around a little but I might have been behind the race car a little bit. These things are just a handful to drive nowadays but that's why Funny Cars get your blood pumping.
 
"We have to get going tomorrow,” added Hagan who will see John Force in the lane next to him to start his day. “We've got a good game plan. We want to keep building on this momentum. Hopefully we'll go rounds and get lane choice to do well."
 
Fellow DSR Mopar driver Tommy Johnson Jr. qualified his Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T just behind Hagan in the 11th spot on the eliminations ladder with his best pass at 4.027/308.85 from Friday to pair up with Alexis DeJoria for the opening round.
 
The 2016 Dodge Charger R/T driven by John Hale qualified 12th with a 4.072/306.12 pass to draw Del Worsham as its first round opponent, while Jim Campbell will line up his 2013 Dodge Charger R/T next to Tim Wilkerson after being seeded 13th with a 4.089/311.13 run.
 
This biggest surprise in qualifying is who didn’t make it down the track. Capps, who came into this weekend second in the Funny Car standings with a win at Pomona, a No. 1 Qualifier position in Phoenix and a runner-up finish at Gainesville, will miss out on Sunday’s elimination rounds in Las Vegas after not being able to drive his Dodge Charger R/T to a full pass in any of the four qualifying attempts.
 
A mechanical issue following the burnout in the first session, along with a hazing of the tires in the second, a disappointing 4.855 /173.16 mph pass in the third and loss of traction in the final qualifying session, means that Capps will be a spectator on race day for the first time since the Seattle national event in 2013.
 
"Nothing is worse than not being able to race on Sunday," said Capps, who is the second on the all-time list of winningest Funny Car drivers with 45 national event title victories.
 
The NHRA factory hot rod all-star event took over Saturday’s Pro Stock qualifying sessions with three Mopar representatives in the eight car field for the K&N Horsepower Challenge race-within-a-race. Erica Enders, Allen Johnson and Jeg Coughlin Jr. got to participate in the bonus event with a lucrative $50,000 payout based on the points they accumulated in qualifying since this same event last season.
 
Elite Motorsports driver Enders was the two-time defending winner and doubled-up both times by winning the Las Vegas National title for additional $25,000 “sweep bonus”. She won her HEMI® vs HEMI first round match-up against Johnson, who also had two previous challenge wins in 12 attempts, with a 6.755 second / 204.60 mph run to beat his 6.789/204.73 pass and advance to the next elimination against Jason Line.
 
The Mopar Performance Dodge Dart GT had the advantage over Line on the start with a .021 second reaction time to his .035 seconds, but a slight tire shake slowed Enders’ run to a 6.810/ 204.39 which wasn’t enough to challenge the winning 6.720/205.94 pass and brought her 23 round win-streak at Las Vegas to an end.
 
“I didn’t want it to end but there was a plan that was different than mine,” said Enders said who hadn’t lost a round in four consecutive national events at Las Vegas. “You know it’s disappointing on one hand but wow what an accomplishment on the other. We’ve got to keep positive and focus tomorrow.”
 
Coughlin, who previously won the bonus event three times, lost his first round match-up against Greg Anderson who moved on to battle his KB teammate Line in the final.
 
The K&N Horsepower Challenge was won by Anderson after Line’s hot rod trailed oil after the burnout and was waved from the starting line. Anderson did a solo run but shook the tires on the start and coasted to the win with a 12.336/89.67 for his fifth K&N Horsepower Challenge win, the most by any driver.
 
The final Pro Stock qualifying sheets saw the top performing Mopar in fifth place. The Elite Motorsports Mopar Performance Dodge Dart of Enders earned the spot with her best run of 6.711 second / 204.63 mph from Friday evening. She will have lane choice over Aaron Strong in the first round.
 
“We definitely made some strides in the right direction,” said Enders who is hoping to make her way out of the first round of eliminations for the first time this season. “Being (previously) first out without lane choice is pretty hard. Having said that I think that we can go back to our set up where we made our good run and have a consistent racecar that’s within striking distance. It’s definitely nice to be a little more solidly in the top half.
 
“We obviously still have a lot of work to do to get to where we want to be, but fifth isn’t a bad position to be start especially considering the people who are ahead of me. The three KB cars have just lit the world on fire this year and then my Elite Motorsports teammate Drew Skillman is the only other one ahead of me so it’s cool. We’re not at the top of the pack but we’ll keep making strides in the right direction and we’ll get better. It’s just a matter of time until we’re back to our winning ways.”
 
Coughlin’s Saturday qualifying performance aboard the Elite Motorsports “Magneti Marelli Offered by Mopar”/Jegs.com Dodge Dart GT didn’t help him improve on his 6.756 second (203.16 mph) pass from the day before and put him 13th for the start of eliminations.
 
"Lucky 13, it's gonna have to be," said Coughlin who will see his Elite Motorsports teammate Drew Skillman as his first round match-up. “Nothing has been lucky to this point for us, but as we all know, that can change quickly here in Las Vegas. We made a decent run in Q1 with a .75. It was very uneventful, and it was very smooth.”
 
After an issue on the second run, the team changed engines for Saturday’s first session where he posted a 6.807/203.52. Coughlin missed the final session after another problem kept him in the pits.
 
"We'll step back and see if we can't take the pieces and parts we have here to give us a good effort tomorrow," Coughlin said. "We run our teammate in Drew Skillman first round, and he was low for the last session, so they're going to be extremely tough. We've elevated our program coming into the event, so hopefully we'll have something to run next to him with."
 
Allen Johnson had his best pass of the weekend and the fourth quickest run of the final Pro Stock qualifying session in his Marathon Petroleum Dodge Dart GT with a 6.736/204.60 lap to put him tenth on the eliminations ladder where he gives up lane choice to his first round opponent Alex Laughlin.
 
Deric Kramer qualified 11th aboard his Dodge Dart with a 6.749/204.45 to draw Vincent Nobile as his first round match-up while V. Gaines will start his HEMI-powered Dodge Dart 14th after his best lap at 6.773/204.39 to pair him up with Bo Butner for the opening round.
 
The elimination rounds of the 17th Annual DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals, the fourth of 24 events on the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season schedule, will air on FS1 on Sunday, April 3 starting at 5 p.m. (ET) with a three hour broadcast that includes live finals from The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
 
About Mopar Motorsports
The Mopar brand’s commitment to professional motorsports competition was established in the 1950s when a partnership ignited with drag racing pioneer Don Garlits, resulting in the breaking of numerous speed and performance barriers in HEMI®-powered vehicles over the next several decades. In 2016, Mopar will look to once again vie for a NHRA World Championship title in both Pro Stock and Funny Car categories. While Mopar remains involved in a various professional motorsports series, it continues to honor its roots by being a proud supporter of Sportsman racing within the NHRA with its sponsorship of the HEMI Challenge and Mopar’s Tom Hoover Sportsman Challenge.
 
              
About Mopar Brand
Mopar (a simple contraction of the words MOtor and PARts) was trademarked in 1937 with the launch of an antifreeze product, but it truly made its mark in the 1960s during the muscle-car era. From Mopar Performance Parts to enhance speed and handling for both road and racing use, the brand soon expanded to include technical service and customer support.
 
Today, Mopar is FCA’s service, parts and customer-care brand and distributes more than 500,000 parts and accessories in over 150 markets around the world. With more than 50 parts distribution centers and 27 customer-contact hubs globally, Mopar integrates service, parts and customer-care operations in order to enhance dealer and customer support worldwide. Mopar is the source for genuine parts and accessories for FCA brands.
 
Mopar parts are engineered together with the same teams that create factory-authorized specifications for FCA vehicles. This offers a direct connection that no other aftermarket parts company can provide. A complete list of Mopar accessories and performance parts is available at www.mopar.com.